Police search over a dozen homes for drugs

Law officers from several agencies searched more than a dozen homes in Mason City this week for drug evidence. Police have not said how many people are implicated nor what they seized. Mason City police Lieutenant Ron Vande Weerd says they had a lot of help. Vande Weerd says 28 different agencies assisted in one form or another with the investigation that led to the search warrants being executed, though as yet, no arrests have been made. He says they needed to bring in extra bodies so that all the warrants could be served at the same time. The investigation has been underway for a few months and all of the residents are connected in some way, so the houses all needed to be hit at the same time. The search warrants were served all over Mason City and Vande Weerd says they’re hopeful the warrants will lead to a number of arrests.The North Central Iowa Narcotics Task Force was assisted by the U.S. Attorney’s Office, the F-B-I, the Iowa Department of Narcotics, the D-C-I, the Iowa State Patrol, the Mason City Police and Fire Departments, Sheriff’s Departments in Cerro Gordo, Worth, Mitchell, Franklin, Kossuth, Hancock and Story counties, police from Clarion, Manly, Marshalltown, Minneapolis and Chicago as well as the Department of Human Services, the Department of Probation and Parole and the Mason City Neighborhood Service.